pitchfork is dumb (#34985859340293849494 in a series.)

"paul gilbert revolutionizes our perception of bodies and spaces"

god, i hate to ask, but wtf is that Nirvana cover. is that indicative of some larger trend or is Nightcore huge and i don't know it or ... ?

is it even a cover or did they just take the track and speed it up in a DAW? i don't notice anything new?

when you accidentally type "pitchforj.com" into your browser

https://i.imgur.com/TOONxlA.png

even that sped-up version doesn't touch 203 bpm!

it's not a cover, it's just sped up yeah. nightcore is this weird youtube phenomenon that dates back over a decade where teens post sped up songs with anime pics (usually) and credit them to 'nightcore'. nightcore was originally some norwegian dj duo who made sped up remixes of trance tracks (i think actually doing some remixing), but then kids decided to imitate them by just speeding up anything while calling the result nightcore. there are nightcore videos with hundreds of millions of views

should be called anti-Screw

In 1971, at 26, Rod Stewart thought he was an old man.

haha tell me about it ;_;

This way this sentence is written made me laugh for some reason:

For her performance of “All-American Bitch,” Rodrigo transformed the stage into a tea party and destroyed it, hopping on the table and stomping all over all the cakes.

outrageous! what will the duchess say.

sry xpost tangent-
i remember hearing about nightcore for the first time about a decade ago when i encountered a youtube of "this charming man" basically being played on 45rpm.

it reminded me of how i had this cassette player in my childhood (late 80s/early 90s) with a broken pause button. if you pressed it, instead of pausing, it sped up the tape. i loved it. that was my preferred way of listening to janet jackson rhythm nation, actually. it would be a shot straight into a wormhole of nostalgia if any "(sped up)" janet jackson versions hit streaming.

(idiot time: did 8 year old austin accidentally invent nightcore????)

(also the inverse: the syr records series is mostly pressed for 45rpm playback, but all of them sound way better at 33⅓)

(also one more thing: there's been an influx of "slowed and reverb" versions hitting streaming over the past couple years. i'm a fan.)

It's always been a bit of a thing on the Balearic scene, playing records at the wrong speed: Jolene, Payola$, Deniece Williams, TC 1992 etc

Everyone who had the Alvin and the Chipmunks Christmas record inevitably turned them into demons from hell at 33 1/3.

i mean...

that’s just dave’s normal voice

and it's just lovely, isn't it?

https://x.com/PhilipSherburne/status/1734276629357093166?s=20

Hmmm.

News: In a note to staff, Condé Nast announces that Pitchfork is being moved under GQ. pic.twitter.com/8NzvtYKFLB

— Max Tani (@maxwelltani) January 17, 2024

GQ's been doing some good work lately. "The Best Athletic Fit Jeans for Your Big, Beautiful Thighs" is a banger.

Lovely.

Per the link, Puja Patel is out as editor. In a Bluesky response to my posts over there just now, Marc Hogan is saying more layoff meetings are happening and he figures it'll hit him in half an hour.

Whoa

I can't underplay how grim this is.

Agreed.

Nothing will ever again exist as a synecdoche for Everything Wrong With Music and/or Music Journalism in the way Pitchfork did. What will we all bitch about now?

have the most obnoxious people on Twitter come out of the woodwork yet to say this is because of poptimism

this is disgusting, short-sighted, stupid decision

have the most obnoxious people on Twitter come out of the woodwork yet to say this is because of poptimism

― Murgatroid,

yes?

I've referred to my job at pitchfork as being on a ferris wheel at closing time, just waiting for them to yank me down. after nearly 8 yrs, mass layoffs got me. glad we could spend that time trying to make it a less dude-ish place just for GQ to end up at the helm

— Jill Mapes (@jillian_mapes) January 17, 2024

Nothing will ever again exist as a synecdoche for Everything Wrong With Music and/or Music Journalism in the way Pitchfork did. What will we all bitch about now?

― Tahuti Watches L&O:SVU Reruns Without His Ape (unperson), Wednesday, January 17, 2024 1:35 PM (fourteen minutes ago)

My pitch: MTV restarts Total Request Live as some sort of Twitch/Tiktok thing. The rotating cast of hosts is pulled from the most popular music review youtubers

barf, imagine accidentally pulling up F@ntano on your big screen

I started interning at Pitchfork in January 2010, and after a short gap, was hired part-time in March 2012. This job has been a big part of my life ever since. Today I was laid off.

— evan minsker (@evanminsker) January 17, 2024

Mapes posted that Ryan Dombal -- who's worked there for 15 years -- is also out.

They were the features editors when I still wrote there.

left Game Informer about 9 years ago now, after 16 years, I always wanted to be an entertainment journalist and getting to write about video games was a blast for most of it but at the end of the day I just didn't see the future...I hate to be discouraging to a kid that still asks me about it but the job of entertainment journalist basically doesn't exist anymore than a job of making wheels for a covered wagon does, outside of people with day jobs who do it as a hobby (much like how music itself is!)

but it's just over and you can't pretend otherwise anymore :(

really heartbreaking

I have been writing for Pitchfork regularly since 2004. I joined full-time in 2016. I know music journalism isn't exactly brain surgery, but I have been privileged to do a bunch of work I'm really proud of, with amazing colleagues. Like too many of them, I was laid off today.

— Marc Hogan (@MarcHogan) January 17, 2024

So depressing, I'm sorry to all the good ilxors that are going to be impacted by this. Still some really tremendous writing even recently, especially worthwhile for things like the Sunday reviews.

UMS said it all very well.

I think back to being like 23 and wanting so badly to be in entertainment (arts/music) journalism, and it still felt like it at least had a future - and then the dominoes started falling.

seems very bleak, end of an era

I'm not seeing much about what this entails for the site (apart from the layoffs). Is this all that's come out?

Pitchfork is going to continue publishing, but future seems unclear medium/long term. I’m told this was a business side decision, advertising is stronger at other Conde brands like GQ. But don’t have much more info yet…

— Max Tani (@maxwelltani) January 17, 2024

Most likely GQ will publish reviews or none at all.

jon otm across the board. they were getting better all the time. even i, in all of my cynicism and vitriol, still became at least a weekly deep reader in the past few years because, well... it was finally getting good! there was even some redemption happening.

big sigh.

best wishes to everyone here affected.

Ugh really sorry to hear all of this, even if it's not shocking. I had long wondered how viable Pitchfork was. I don't always love or agree with Pitchfork, but it's one of my regular stops and I have definitely been introduced to lots of stuff I like via them.

I've started downloading PDFs.

a lot of love to you Alfred and to all who have put in the work at this site. feel like it took this shoe a lot longer to drop than I expected but they really seem to be dropping the hammer now. everybody has their beef w/Pitchfork on this or that matter, me included, but it's been a big part of the story in my life over the years.

Sending good feeling to all who work/write for them.

An unconscionable decision, tbh.

I wasn't really following at the time, but was there any serious backlash on the CN sale back when it happened? Of course it seemed like a good decision at the time, I'm sure, but I also have the punk side of me that's like... "never trust the big corporations, they will drop you as soon as you become unruly or unprofitable." that isn't really smart business thinking, but it's advice that i think could be whispered into more ears more often.

At the time there was a lot of lolling about Millennial Males.

table, i recall being "that guy" and thinking it would go the route of rolling stone, but for millennials: everything's pretty okay and terrible things happen and here's your favorite music worth listing, again.

i will say that i'm glad i was wrong. great work, all involved since then.

You know why Conde Nast broke them? Because they unionized.

That is sad.